In Nobody's Eyes But Mine
by Invisionary
Summary: Willow&Xander. Look inside for the summary.


Title: In Nobody's Eyes But Mine  
Characters/Pairing: Willow, Xander. There may or may not be subtext.  
Setting: In season 7, sometime after "First Date" but before "Dirty Girls."  
Warnings: None  
Word Count: 1,487  
Summary: "You're a star / In nobody's eyes but mine."  
Disclaimer: All characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer belong to Mutant Enemy productions, which I am not in any way affiliated with.  
Author's Note: The views and opinions of the characters appearing in this story (and indeed all my stories) do not necessarily reflect those of the author.

Written for the Multifandom MP3 Challenge on LiveJournal. Participants were assigned a song at random and asked to write a story (or make fanart) inspired by it (or some part of it). My song was "Andy, You're A Star," by The Killers, and that's where the title and the summary quote are both from. This is **not** a songfic, so don't worry.

Big thanks to Alixtii for the beta.

**In Nobody's Eyes But Mine**

"Hey."

Willow nods to Xander as she steps outside through the back door of Buffy's house. He looks up at her from where he's seated on the edge of the back porch, his expression unreadable for a moment, then gives her a tight smile.

"Hey," he says. "Come to watch the sunset?"

"Actually, no," she replies, sitting down next to him. "I just needed a little space." She gestures back toward the house with her head. "With the Potentials all over the place in there... I couldn't even hear myself think."

Xander chuckles. "I can relate," he says. "What do you think I'm doing out here?"

As if on cue, there's a crash from inside, followed by the sound of Andrew's high-pitched voice yelling at someone to get out of the kitchen. And then she can hear someone - a Potential by the sound of it, Willow can't tell which one - arguing back at him, but it's over quickly and it's quiet again. For now, at least.

A moment passes in silence, and then she turns to Xander. She's been wanting to talk to him for a while now, and this is as good an opportunity as she's likely to get, these days. "So... How are you doing?" she asks.

He opens his mouth, most likely to give her the same automatic answer he gives everyone. _I'm fine_. But then he turns toward her and whatever he's about to say dies on his lips. He can obviously see that this isn't just a casual passing of pleasantries; she's asking him a serious question.

He looks at her askance, and Willow abruptly realizes what an odd question it is. Oh, it's not odd for most people, but it is for them. For her and Xander. A few years ago, she wouldn't have had to ask how he was doing. She would have just _known_. Known it like she knew how she herself was feeling.

But not now. Now, there's this... distance, between them. And as much as it hurts her to admit, it's there, and she doesn't know what to do about it.

"I'm okay," Xander says with a shrug, and Willow can't contain a frustrated sigh at his answer. She briefly considers giving up on this idea, but quickly decides not to. Maybe this won't end any better than any of the other times she's tried to talk to him in the past few weeks, but she has to try.

"Xander, you went out on a date last week and almost got killed," she says. "Are you _really_ okay?"

"I'm really okay," he replies. "I didn't get stabbed anywhere important. I'll be fine."

Talk about missing the point. "Xander..."

"What do you want me to say?" he shoots back. "It's over and done with. And why the sudden interest, huh? It's not like you..."

He shuts his mouth then, swallowing whatever else he has to say, and looks away. But the message comes through clearly. And he's right - and that hurts to admit, too.

This just isn't the kind of conversation they have anymore. They used to be able to talk about _anything_, but now... Ever since she came back from England it's been like this. Well, okay, there was that time he went with her when she visited Tara's grave, but after that, things just hadn't been right been between them.

And she can't tell him what she so desperately wants - _needs_ - to tell him.

Willow looks up, watching as the sky fades into a dull orange. It's beautiful, like sunsets usually are here, but it doesn't really register with her. There's too much on her mind and she can't appreciate it.

How could she have let things get to this point? She loves Xander more than anyone else in the world, and now they can't even _talk_? How does that happen?

She doesn't know. When she thinks back over the past couple of months, she just doesn't know why things happened the way they did. She doesn't know why she didn't think he could help her when Amy was using her own guilt to torment her, for instance. She can't make any sense of it, and she sighs softly and turns back to Xander again.

She watches him sometimes, when he's not looking. Not all the time, not like back when they were in high school and she pretty much constantly daydreamed about kissing him. Just sometimes, when she needs a break from whatever she's studying or working on. She watches him when he's fixing something around Buffy's house, or when he's having an uncomfortable conversation with Anya, or when he has that long-suffering look on his face as he listens to Andrew ramble on about something inane.

And she watches him now, as he stares down at the ground in front of them. He's tense and she can see the frustration etched on his face. Obviously this isn't any easier for him than it is for her.

_He deserves better,_ she thinks. _Better than what he's gotten recently._ After all he's done, for her and for everyone else, is she incapable of a simple show of friendship? Of affection? Of...?

No.

She reaches for his hand, resting on the porch between them, and brushes it with her own. He turns toward her, surprised, and she gives him what she hopes is a warm and friendly smile. She watches as he studies her curiously for a moment.

Then his expression softens and she sees him relax a little. Willow scoots in next to him, and he moves his hand to make space for her, wrapping his arm around her waist. They sit together in silence, and the warmth of Xander's body helps ward off the oncoming chill in the air.

She thinks about the few times recently when she's heard some of the Potentials talking about him. Some of them didn't think much of him from the beginning, but it's only gotten worse since he came limping through the door after that disastrous date of his.

She knows that it's easy to look at Xander and see the guy who's useless, the guy who always needs to be helped out of trouble. But he's so much more than that. And when she hears these girls talking about him like he's just some tag-along, it's almost more than she can take. It's not like her to just up and let someone have it, but she's been sorely tempted on more than one occasion to get in these girls' faces and tell them that Xander's so much better than any of them think. Better than he himself thinks, she's sure.

She wants to scream at them that they wouldn't even be here right now if it wasn't for him.

But the worst is Buffy. With her, it's like he's not even there most of the time. She's too preoccupied with the First - or with Spike, Willow's honestly not sure which - to pay him any attention at all, these days. And that's not right either, and she wishes there was something she could do about it, but things are so strained between them already that she doesn't even know how she'd go about broaching the subject.

Still, it bothers her. These days it seems like there's no one who sees his value.

But she sees.

And no matter what, she'll never let herself forget it again. She'll never let herself forget what he means to her, even if she can't find the words to tell him that.

But as she turns and looks at him and sees him smiling back at her, a real smile this time, the kind she knows from years past, she thinks that maybe... maybe she doesn't need them.

And okay, she can see sadness behind the smile, and something else - regret, maybe? She knows there's still a lot between them that needs to be fixed. But they haven't turned into strangers, and that's a start. It's something they can build on.

"It's getting dark," Xander says at length.

"You scared?" Willow asks, smirking.

"In Sunnydale? No, who could possibly be afraid of the dark here?" he replies with a grin.

"I can make the sun come back up, if you want," she deadpans.

"No!" Xander blurts in shock, his head whipping around to face her. "You... I mean, you can't really do that, can you?"

Willow giggles and shakes her head. "No. But you should have seen the look on your face."

He stares at her for a moment, then nods and chuckles softly, and Willow sighs and rests her head on Xander's shoulder. He doesn't say anything, he just pulls her close and they sit together, watching the last of the sun's rays dip below the horizon. Maybe things aren't the way they should be between them, but for now at least, this is enough.

END


End file.
